11 August 1875: The Whitby town crier’s unique act for the municipal dog show
William Allison. 1920. “My Kingdom for a Horse!”. New York: E.P. Dutton and Company. Get it:
.Unedited excerpt
If an excerpt is used in the book, it will be shorter, edited and, where applicable, translated.
That summer, I did my first and only London season. That is to say, I went a full round of At Homes and other functions two or three nearly every evening dinners and goodness knows what. How I was drawn into this vortex matters not, but I think I began at Mrs Freke’s and saw Mrs Monckton and other amateur celebrities act. Mr Isidore de Lara was all the rage during that season, and I rejoice to think he has still retained his popularity. Personally, however, I had no real liking for this sort of life, and though people were kind and hospitable and I made many friends, I was really glad to get away from it all, and to Whitby Dog Show in the late summer.
At that show was a novelty which remains in memory much more clearly than the more pretentious details of that London season. It was that the Whitby bellman was employed to summon the various classes into the ring, which he did in thoroughly orthodox fashion, thus:
Oyez, Oyez, Oyez!
Class 20 – In the Ring immediately!
Every man to his dog! God save the Queen!
This, of course, with bell-ringing, before and after the command.
There was a class for fox-hounds at that show, and some few reasonably good hounds were shown. “Bobby” Dowson, who is still remembered as a Whip of that old-world pack, the Bilsdale, had brought a great, throaty, mealy-pied hound from those kennels, and he had a biscuit in his pocket with which to make the heavy-jowled beast show himself. The judges at once relegated him to a corner as having no chance, but the little old man thought he was first choice, and kept holding up a piece of biscuit for his hound, and saying: “Nowt can ekal this dog! Nowt can ekal him!”
So engrossed was he in admiration of his exhibit that the prizes and other honours were given and the rest of the class had left the ring before he became aware that he had got nothing.
Comment
Comment
In 1875 the show was held on the day before the start of the grouse season (Northern Echo 1875/08/12).
Edward Lear only visited Filey in rhyme, and mistakenly converted their bellman into a two-man act:
There was an old person of Filey,
Of whom his acquaintance spoke highly;
He danced perfectly well
to the sound of a bell,
And delighted the people of Filey.
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- Allison, William (1851-1925) (12), Yorkshire-born sporting journalist W/G ·
- Balliol College, Oxford (1) W/G ·
- Bell (7) W/G ·
- Bilsdale (2) W/G ·
- Dog show (1) W/G ·
- Dog (12) W/G ·
- Fox hunting (4) W/G ·
- Foxhound (1) W/G ·
- Glorious Twelfth (3) W/G ·
- Handbell (2) W/G ·
- Honour Moderations (1) W/G ·
- Isidore de Lara (1) W/G ·
- Lear, Edward (1812-88) (1), artist, illustrator, musician, author and poet, known mostly for his literary nonsense in poetry and prose and especially his limericks, a form he popularised W/G ·
- Limerick (poetry) (1) W/G ·
- London (84) W/G ·
- North York Moors (9) W/G ·
- Poetry (75) W/G ·
- Queen Victoria (10) W/G ·
- Town crier (5) W/G ·
- University of Oxford (2) W/G ·
- 📌Whitby (22), town, port and parish on the east coast of North Yorkshire/the North Riding at the mouth of the River Esk W/G ·
Comment
Comment
In 1875 the show was held on the day before the start of the grouse season (Northern Echo 1875/08/12).
Edward Lear only visited Filey in rhyme, and mistakenly converted their bellman into a two-man act:
There was an old person of Filey,
Of whom his acquaintance spoke highly;
He danced perfectly well
to the sound of a bell,
And delighted the people of Filey.
Something to say? Get in touch
Similar
30 May 1835: Alfred Austin, future poet laureate, “Banjo-Byron that twangs the strum-strum,” is born into rural splendour at Ashwood, 48 Headingley Lane, Leeds
Comment
Comment
Clifford Allbutt in 1923 in The Cambridge Review:
On prize competition days Church Street, Dewsbury, a fairly wide street, used to be packed with listeners, and very critical listeners they were. Almost everyone had note-book in hand to mark errors in the peal, and few escaped their vigilance. … It was curious, and not without historical causes, that the towers were regarded by the ringers as a domain separate from the church, and the tenor kept the keys. At Dewsbury a barrel of beer was on tap in the chamber; and for a ringer to stray into church must have seemed like a transgression of the etiquette of his calling (Rolleston 1929).
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